WHERE DO I BELONG?

I was born in the Ivory coast, I was never fluent in French though a spoke a little of it while growing up. My parents are 100% Liberians, they expect me to relate to the Liberian struggle but the truth is I’ve only lived in Liberia for almost 3 years. As you can imagine that’s not a really long time. I moved to Ghana when I was 5 years old; I basically grew up in Ghana so I can relate more to the Ghanaian culture more than my “suppose” culture. I left Ghana when I was almost 10 years old and moved back to Liberia. When I went back to Liberia for the second time I was much older but still couldn’t understand this “culture” I belonged to. People kept telling me that I should be a proud Liberian and what not but the problem I had with that was I never really got the full “Liberian experience” to consider myself a full fleshed Liberian.

People made me believe that I couldn’t even claim the Ivory Coast as my birth country because #1 I only lived there for two years of my life. #2 I don’t speak French. These reasons are valid but I also didn’t think it was right to denounce my birth country. It’s a piece of me if not the first piece of me and although I don’t know much about Liberia as well I still cannot denounce the country because it’s the birth country of my family. The most confusing question I ask myself is if am Liberian or not. I mean in my head I believe that I am Ivorian which would make sense right? But then I have people telling me that if I speak in a Liberian accent, eat Liberian food, and my family is from Liberia then so am I.

Since I moved to the United States people now think that I talk white and act white. I don’t really fit in with the black population because I’m not African American, I’m African (I’ll elaborate on this one day hopefully soon). The  way Liberians pronounce words is not the way I pronounce it, I find myself unconsciously correcting them when they say the wrong thing.  People get mad and tell me that I’m trying to force myself on a different culture because I didn’t grow up talking “white”. Yes at a point in time this was true but I consider America to be my home country as well because I practically grew up here. Everything I know about life I learned in America. So when I’m talking with a “white accent” and can barely pronounce words the “Liberian way”  it’s not because I’m putting on a show; it’s just simply me not knowing how to pronounce words the Liberian way, honestly there’s nothing more to it.

So the question I always ask myself is where do I belong because I can’t seem to fit in anywhere. I fit in more with the Ghanaians then my birth country as crazy as that is. I guess I’m still on this journey of discovery so I’ll figure it out but for now I do know that I’m Ivorian Liberian.